We had our lunch today at this nice family’s restaurant. Doug and I have been marveling at how we have not had a bad meal here yet. One of our favorite dishes is eggs scrambled and then cooked in this light and savory red sauce, tomatoes and a lightly spicy green pepper. After lunch today I have a new favorite dish. It was some sort of pickled cucumber served cold with sliced red chili pepper and pickled garlic. It was was tart and really salty which is something I crave because Doug and I both sweat buckets from the minute we start walking in the morning. We are also eating vegetables we have never eaten before. We are eating the stuff that you usually toss out or wouldn’t think to eat. I’m pretty sure that this morning I ate squash leaves and stems. Back home, you eat the squash or if you are trendy and hip you eat the blossom. Here, they boil up the leaves and those stems with the tiny little hairs on them in a light veggie broth with a little oil in it and then serve it over rice. It’s not super delicious or anything to rave about. It’s just interesting and kind of novel to eat a part of the plant that we would never consider eating. Just in case it wasn’t squash leaves and stems, don’t try making this at home until you fact check it. I don’t want anyone getting sick
Have you had any issue with the vegetarian thing?
Everyone here has a cellphone so we have not encountered anyone who hasn’t seen their own picture. I have however visited very rural communities in other countries where people were very excited to see their own image in a digital camera screen.
Oddly enough, the only times I’ve really had problems getting vegetarian meals has been in the bigger cities. In the more rural areas or smaller towns people really try and we hAve bother had sone really delicious meals. The two times we ate in nice restaurants in bigger cities we re the only 2 times I had a problem. It was as if they didn’t even care. In the first situation, I went without dinner, in the second situation, I sent the dish back and they prepared it without fish saucw the 2nd time. I have a card that I show people and it is written in Mandarin characters and explains that I am a vrgetarian, I don’t eat meat, meat broths, nothing cooked with bones or fish. Its pretty clear.